The 35W Interstate Highway is a staple for Minneapolis commuters, but what many people may not know is that the highway and its construction is responsible for the segmentation of communities and displacement of hundreds of families—the impacts of which are still felt today.
For his capstone project, Tyler McDaniel (Heritage Studies and Public History) created workshops for children to artistically interpret the history of South Minneapolis and 35W.
McDaniel became interested in exploring 35W's cultural impact through a research project with Associate Professor Greg Donofrio and HSPH alumna Denise Pike. After a summer spent digging through archives about the project, McDaniel came to the realization that a direct community voice on the subject was absent. “Everything from the community perspective was little blips and quotes, nothing fully fleshed out,” McDaniel reflected. “I became specifically interested in investigating the negative effects of the freeway’s construction, how it impacted surrounding communities, and how it displaced families and neighbors.”
Deciding that the most effective way to enact change is by starting with the youth, and wanting to leverage his prior experience doing art works with children, McDaniel designed a hands-on workshop to teach South Minneapolis students about the highway’s construction while creatively engaging participants with the history. “The workshops really came together through conversations with my collaborators and their individual skill sets. I gave the foundation with the history and together we built up the framework of how it would be interpreted artistically.”
So far, McDaniel has completed a workshop with 7th and 8th-grade students at the Clara Barton Open School as a component of their lesson on the play A Raisin in the Sun. Over a two-day period, McDaniel presented the history of 35W’s construction to six classes, then facilitated an activity where the students created small art pieces to fill a 20-ft map of 35W on the classroom whiteboards. “The students’ drawings filled the freeway to create a mural effect and symbolically reconnected the neighborhoods severed by the interstate,” explained McDaniel.
“I want these workshops to inspire kids to consider the built environment around them and to think critically about their surroundings as they navigate through their respective neighborhoods and their worlds,” said McDaniel. “My hope is that exploring history in this way will not only be a learning experience, but will help younger people to conceptualize the ‘hidden histories’ beneath their feet and rethink the built environment that they interact within their daily lives.”
While some of McDaniel’s plans for the project were interrupted due to the stay-in-place orders, he is dedicated to continuing his work educating students about the cultural rifts caused by the construction of the 35W interstate and has converted the history he’s collected into an online story map. Community members are encouraged to submit their own creative responses to then be populated on the map. “My hope in adapting this project into an online map is to create a resource for interactive exploration or a tool for educators who want to utilize a digital lesson,” concluded McDaniel.
On display at the Hennepin History Museum, Owning Up: Racism and Housing in Minneapolis explores the history of racial housing discrimination in Minneapolis through the stories of three Black families.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $500,000 grant to the University of Minnesota for the interdisciplinary Heritage Studies and Public History (HSPH) graduate program.
Next fall marks the start of a new program for the College of Design, the masters in heritage studies and public history (HSPH). In partnership with the College of Liberal Arts and the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS), HSPH combines hands-on professional development with rigorous scholarly training.
